Eugène-Melchior Péligot, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetEugène-Melchior Péligot
French chemist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Paris, Île-de-France, France
About Eugène-Melchior Péligot
- Eugène-Melchior Péligot (24 March 1811 in Paris – 15 April 1890 in Paris), also known as Eugène Péligot, was a French chemist who isolated the first sample of uranium metal in 1841.Péligot proved that the black powder of Martin Heinrich Klaproth was not a pure metal (it was an oxide of uranium, known in chemistry as UO2).
- He then succeeded in producing pure uranium metal by reducing uranium tetrachloride (UCl4) with potassium metal.
- Today better methods have been found. Péligot was a professor of analytical chemistry at the Institut National Agronomique.
- He collaborated with Jean-Baptiste Dumas, and together they discovered the methyl radical during experiments on wood spirit (methanol).
- The terminology "methyl alcohol" was created by both chemists from "wood wine".
- They also prepared the gaseous dimethyl ether, and many esters.
- In 1838, they successfully transformed camphor into p-cymene using phosphorus pentoxide. In 1844 he synthesized chromium(II) acetate, which was much later recognized (by F.
- Albert Cotton in 1964) to be the first chemical compound which contains a quadruple bond.
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